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Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirrorand, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do.

Over the course of one’s life, much seems to be shrouded in mystery. And I’m thinking not so much in looking back, though that’s true, but in living through it. And then there’s the nebulous in between stuff, which we had enough understanding to work through, and either did well, or well enough, or not.

It is critical in one’s life to take a radical stance in acting on what we do know, which includes a whole host of things. I can’t emphasize this enough to help others avoid my errors, but also for me in the present. The only way I can avoid self-deception along with satanic deception is to stay on the straight and narrow course of obedience to God’s word. And what that involves is both very gospel and church oriented. And again, it’s rooted in the word, but the goal of that being an interactive relationship with God in communion with the church. And of course our lives in all of this are to be a witness to the world.

In answering the questions we know, I am getting at plain old fashioned obedience to scripture, nonetheless. To take a lot more of it literally, than not. And that involves good reading, meditation, and study. Of course we read scripture as both a human and divine book. So that we don’t do fanciful things with it in working at getting at the plain sense of its meaning. And we consider it in its entirety, and learn from biblical scholars who do the same. We stay the course not only of scripture, but within the latitude and accepted parameters of the church’s interpretation and understanding.

Let me say again that this is crucial. Life is going to throw us some serious issues along the way, at least in our minds, but also in reality. Some of it in my own life has definitely been a matter of the mind. But others definitely real, as well as difficult. We need scripture and the church, and to be honest to God, and honest to others, particularly those in leadership, as well as a trusted, wise friend.

So let’s concentrate on doing well in what we know, and trust God to help us be faithful in that, as well as through the more difficult matters, along with what we don’t understand at all. And to learn to keep doing this, and growing in it, in and through Jesus.

When Job’s three friends, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite, heard about all the troubles that had come upon him, they set out from their homes and met together by agreement to go and sympathize with him and comfort him.When they saw him from a distance, they could hardly recognize him; they began to weep aloud, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads.Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him, because they saw how great his suffering was.

Good start, but bad ending for Job’s three friends. Actually a good ending, considering that God had Job pray for them in the end. The fact that they sat with him in silence for seven whole days is exemplary. But what we can see from the rest of the book is that likely during those seven days their hearts and minds were stirred with thoughts for their words, essentially diatribes against Job, which followed.

Of course we wouldn’t have what turns out to be a long wisdom book without their sayings, and Job’s reply to them. It’s almost as if that dialog becomes what’s important, and especially God’s answer in the end. Not really giving Job an explanation, but instead, what Job really needed. But at the same time exonerating Job, while rebuking Job’s three friends. Interestingly, the young man who said something before Job spoke, is not corrected by God, unless one might say that he kind of anticipates God’s answer, yet even if he thinks he’s above Job’s friends, does seem to faintly echo them.

Job is actually a great book, even if puzzling and troubling on a certain level. My favorite group Bible study was one we had going through Job. It is more like an exercise in humility, rather than finding answers to help us through life. But that’s the point. We need to be silent and still before God, not just in regard to ourselves, but also concerning others. Rather than think we have all the answers based on our theology and understanding.

Does that mean we don’t try to understand the plight of others? I don’t think so. It might mean that in doing so, we try not to lean to our own understanding of even what we believe from scripture, but instead, actively lean on God. Much in our understanding might be true, as was the case with Job’s three friends, but like them, misapplied. We need to be in prayer, ask questions, and investigate. And never think we arrived to the final answer.

Of course the final answer in scripture is the gospel: God in Christ reconciling the world to himself and his good will and purpose. And that applying to every situation in some way, believe it or not. But still holding everyone accountable to accept in faith God’s word to us in Jesus, and specifically in Jesus’s incarnation, life, teachings, death and resurrection, along with his ascension, the pouring out of the Spirit, with the promise of his return. That is God’s answer to everything, which in itself is not simplistic, but points toward the completeness of the gospel itself.

So although Job’s friends did have a lot of knowledge in the way of theology, they lacked wisdom in applying it. Just the same, it is the inspired word of God, and is a case in point of how the parts as in the responses of Job’s friends need to be seen within the whole, and help us at least begin to appreciate what otherwise we never would. Job answers his friends who don’t let go, but answer back for awhile. And then God answers. All of it is instructive and important in its place.

This is a wisdom book, and unfolds in such a way as to simply make us aware of our need of God rather than some textbook answer which we can write down, and then carry out. Not that there isn’t instruction throughout, and especially in what God tells Job in the end, which really amounts to helping Job see that when it’s all said and done, Job can’t understand what only God can. And his friends failed to speak the truth about God, unlike Job, who at least was seriously wrestling with God over his disaster and the dilemma that followed. And in faith received God’s word. All of this now for us, in and through Jesus.

The Bible is full of places where God’s people, even his servants question him, wondering about this or that, especially in terms of God’s justice and even goodness. Habakkuk is a good case in point, as we heard in the message (week one: “Honest to God”) yesterday. Another great example is Job, who in the end didn’t have all his questions answered, but it didn’t seem to matter. Actually in the case of Job, we might say he was intellectually satisfied, and probably more importantly, satisfied in his heart, because the essential answer which God gave him is that the God who created everything in all that wonder is beyond the scope of Job’s ability to comprehend and fully appreciate. God does give us what we need to carry on and do well in the faith which is in him in and through Jesus.

I too often, probably just occasionally have questions which while not necessarily large scale often have no quick and easy answers. Proverbs tells us that it is the glory of kings to search out a matter, so it doesn’t hurt at all for us to pray and investigate and find out what we can in trying to arrive to some satisfactory answer. But do all of our questions have to be answered? The really essential one for the Christian faith is the reality or not of Jesus’s resurrection from the dead. Our faith depends on the veracity of that as a historical and not just religious truth. It either happened, and therefore our faith is true, or it didn’t happen. And since our faith purports to be dependent on that, and not just some tradition or religion we do, we have nothing according to Paul if it’s not historical fact (1 Corinthians 15). The evidence from the gospel accounts (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) is quite compelling, and coupled with Luke’s account in Acts followed by the rest of the New/Final Testament and what follows in history afterward, we can say we have good reason intellectually to accept that as true. And we have found that confession of faith to be life changing, setting us on a completely new course in life (Romans 10:9-10). It’s other nagging questions along the way which subtly can eat away at our faith, at the practice of it.

And that leads me to the main question for this post: Where does our confidence ultimately lie, in God himself, or in having all of our questions answered? And the easy answer is that our confidence is in God alone, apart from whatever questions which might remain unanswered. But the more complex, true to life answer is that we can continue to wrestle with God (the meaning of the word Israel, by the way is one who wrestles with God) and ask whatever hard questions we have, big or small. We can struggle and wonder and simply not know. But ultimately we can be at rest even with that tension, because our confidence is in God. So that by and large that tension is relieved without having all of our questions answered. Even as we continue to ask and search for answers to our questions. In and through Jesus.

If there’s one thing I might say characterizes my thinking, it is asking questions. Or let’s put it this way: one thing I’d like to be true in my case, that would be a good beginning.

Faith isn’t at all diminished, when we ask questions. The Bible has many examples of that, both in terms of serious probing, and simple anguish. In fact we do well to bring our questions to God. And when we look at scripture, we find that God himself is not afraid to ask questions to challenge or encourage people concerning their faith. Jesus asked questions. So it can work both ways.

We are blessed to live during a time when many answers, or something toward an answer is right at our fingertips with the internet. That can be good. But in the end, we need to ask the harder, and larger questions: Why am I here; what’s the meaning of life? What is the conclusion, when all is said and done (Ecclesiastes)? Who is Jesus, and what difference does that make? Why is the resurrection the heart of the Christian faith, so that if Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, then our faith is null and void?

Of course we ask the lesser questions too, which all have their place of importance: Have humans impacted the climate, and if so, what can be done about it? And a whole host of questions on issues which in some cases are debated. Asking questions helps us find and better understand issues and problems, and can help us work toward possible solutions.

In the end for me I have to get in the word, and then the questions I have are in relation to what I’m reading and meditating on there. I find that gives a perspective like surely nothing else can. After all, I’m getting into God’s word written. And that helps me to major on what is major, and minor on what is minor, not that I achieve that well, all the time, or perhaps anytime at all, for that matter. We all need God’s grace in Jesus always. It’s not the case of asking the right questions. But faith takes God’s word seriously, and the nature of faith is interactivity with God. Questions can be one aspect of that.

And so we can continue to ask questions. But we do so, looking to the Lord to either answer them, or more likely to give us the grace to carry on in spite of not having any answer, although scripture gives us what we need for a life lived well before God. More and more we find that the answer to all of life somehow ultimately lies in God himself in and through Christ and by the Spirit. Of course many details addressed along the way as well, since God’s gifts figure in that equation, also.

And so keep asking questions. That is indicative of a faith that is alive and growing. Or could help one toward the beginning of faith. And look to God for the answers, through his word, and prayer. The way, the truth, and the life found in Jesus, so all of this actually in and through him.

I used to be rather mocked when in gatherings I would point out the complexity of problems. And in keeping with that thought, I think there was some justification in the criticism, which I think I largely avoid now by being more or less silent, or accentuating my agreement with others.

I distrust easy answers, no matter where they come from, and find life more like an ongoing process, rather than an arrival in which one thinks they have their ducks lined up in a row for an easy killing.

Life lived tends this direction, I think, and the Bible read mirrors that. It tells a story which often leaves one with more questions than answers. Evidently that’s the way God wants it to be, so that, yes, we keep going back to the Bible as God’s word, day after day, but we become more dependent on God himself in and through Christ.

As we go on in life, year piling on year becoming decades, in a sense we know more, but in that knowledge, in another sense we know less. It’s a realization which more and more dawns on us. Along with the growing faith in God’s promise in Jesus, that all will be well in the end, that the one who does know, is the one to whom we can turn and entrust ourselves, our loved ones, even the world, completely.

Faith involves a trust in God, a trust in his promises. Sometimes in the fog of life, it’s hard to see through to any of the promises of God we find in scripture fulfilled in and through Jesus to God’s people. Given the situation and how we got there, it may be hard to see how any of God’s promises will help us out of our immediate trouble. Granted for sure we know in the long run at the end of the day when all is said and done, God will be faithful to his promises and God’s good will prevails. We may not be able to see how that works for us.

I need to be in the word, in scripture daily and throughout the day as much as possible. A big part of that is so that I can learn to do well amidst all the challenges and problems which come my way, some hanging over me.

A danger for us all is to settle into answers which ultimately have no staying power. Perhaps they have staying power for this life “under the sun,” but end up seeming empty or “meaningless” to us in the end (Ecclesiastes). So that like the one who ends the book (see Tremper Longman’s commentary on Ecclesiastes), life is simply about fearing God and keeping his commandments in whatever situation we find ourselves in, whether in the midst of plenty or living in need.

Sometimes the answer is so close to us, even where were living, that we can’t see it. God is working out his purpose, his good will right in front of us, we are in the middle of that, but where we may be in the process makes us wonder.

Such times are good times to lay low, be still and know that God is God, be quiet and listen, continue in the word and prayer, and seek to find God’s peace in the assurance that he is present and will take care of us, of our cares and needs. Of course we are blessed to be a blessing. Our concern must be not only for ourselves but for our neighbor.

At any rate when we are unsure about life’s situation, where to hang our hat so that we can be at rest, that is when we need to learn to look and lean all the more on the one who promises never to leave us and never to forsake us in his presence and working in and through Jesus.